If you didn’t get a BlackBerry Storm yesterday, here’s your second chance. Amazon has this handset for $149 without any need to file a rebate. If you’re looking to buy a new line of service on Verizon - and you have your heart set on a touch screen BlackBerry - Amazon is the easiest (and one of the cheapest) to buy from.

BlackBerry Storm - $149

Lets be realistic, you work for a wireless company and you know you can take a look at the private mobile phone records of President-elect Barack Obama, doesn’t matter how ethical you are, more then likely you will take a look, at least a sneak peak. And that’s exactly what happened to several Verizon Wireless employees. According to a press release on Thursday, a number of employees were caught browsing through Obama’s cell phone records. The mobile account was for a flip phone, rumored to be a Razr, that had been inactive for several months. The records that were breached included call times, phone numbers of incoming/outgoing calls, numbers of text messages sent/received, etc. The employees in question reportedly did not have access to the content of any email, text or voice messages. Verizon initially put all employees who had access to Obama’s account on leave while it conducted an investigation. Later on Friday, Verizon announced that the matter was publicly closed, hmm, top secret information now  and  appropriate federal law enforcement agencies had been contacted and the offending employees were fired. Dude, it really truly sicks for those verizon employees.

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A Kansas jury has ordered AT&T to pay almost $17 million for overcharging its California customers in passing along a federally mandated phone fee. But the jurors late Wednesday didn’t find the telecommunications company guilty of conspiring with Sprint Nextel Corp. or then-competitor MCI to overcharge customers nationwide for the Universal Service Fund. The case consolidated dozens of class-action lawsuits filed around the country. It covered long-distance customers who paid into the Universal Service Fund between Aug. 1, 2001, and March 31, 2003. Sprint was a co-defendant in the case. But the Overland Park, Kan.-based company agreed in September to settle its involvement for $30 million.

After a long period Beta, the Nokia Photos version 1.5 is officially launched and available for free download. With this Noka Potos 1.5, Nokia hopes to compete with Google’s Picasa Nokia Photos. Even if the application does not need a Nokia smartphone to work, you can easily import photos from your memory cards or cameras for example, it has been optimized for use with a smartphone running Symbian S60. Nokia Photos is compatible with the platform Ovi and it even borrows its general design. You can upload your photos to the online service for Ovi partagers with the community.

Download Nokia Photo 1.5

Now you can tell how the major service providers are ripping us off with their handset prices. Alltel becomes the latest to add HTC’s quintessential WinMo QWERTY smartphone to its stable, charging $279.99 for the privilege of adding a Touch Pro to your account on contract after $100 rebate. Looking at the picture it seems like the Sprint’s version with a tweaked version of the TouchFLO 3D UI. A little upgrade for minimal cost.

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Bad economy is hurting everyone. And now Virgin Mobile USA has received a warning from the New York Stock Exchange that it is not in compliance with certain listing criteria. The Company is considered below the applicable standards because the average market capitalization of its Class A common stock and substantial equivalents,  over a period of 30 trading days is less than US$100 million. As of November 11, 2008, the Company’s 30 trading-day average market capitalization was approximately $89.8 million.

Under NYSE regulations, Virgin Mobile USA has 45 days from receipt of the notice to submit a business plan that demonstrates the Company’s ability to restore compliance with the continued listing criteria within 18 months. Virgin Mobile USA has notified the Exchange of its intention to submit this plan on a timely basis and to work closely with NYSE staff to assess its performance relative to the plan.

In addition, the Company expects to receive notification from the NYSE that the average share price of its Class A common stock has been less than $1.00 per share for 30 trading days. In order for the Company to comply with NYSE regulations, the average closing share price of its Class A common stock must average or exceed $1.00 per share for 30 consecutive trading days.

Great news for travellers with Samsung handsets. Samsung Mobile has set up 115 charging stations at three more US airports to enable passengers to recharge their mobile phones if necessary. The new airports are George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston (IAH), Miami International Airport (MIA) and Washington Dulles International Airport (IAD). With today’s additions, Samsung Mobile has installed charging stations in 10 of the nation’s busiest airports in the USA, which are accessible to more than 395 million passengers annually.

Samsung Mobile Charging Stations are outfitted with four outlets per station, allowing several travelers to re-charge their electronic devices at the same time for free. The stations are built to charge personal electronics designed for U.S. voltage (i.e., 120 volts), and are also equipped with a small shelf to hold travelers’ mobile phones and other electronic equipment.

Along with the presentation of MOTO VE66, Motorola launched the contest and MOTODEV Widget Developer Challenge. Those wishing to participate in the competition should develop their own application and to submit results of their work until 27 February 2009 accepted contributions in the following three categories:

• Best in the category
• Best local content
• Most good use of the software

As each winner will be emitted, but there will be a great prize for best winner. The criteria by which applications will be assessed are unique, effective use of platform design, nenatrapchivost and convenience. Great prizes of the competition will be announced in spring next year and meanwhile each month forward nominations. More details can be found at: http://developer.motorola.com/widgetchallenge

Leap Wireless, the parent company of Cricket Wireless, the unlimited wireless services, today announced it will offer its Cricket unlimited wireless phone and broadband Internet services in Milwaukee, Wis. beginning tomorrow. The Cricket footprint, which covers approximately 3,390 square miles and 2.4 million covered POPs in the Greater Milwaukee area, also includes coverage in Racine, Kenosha, and Madison, Wis. and brings Leap’s total national covered POPs to 64.1 million.

Cricket rate plans range from $30 to $60 per month and include unlimited anytime minutes, unlimited U.S. long distance, unlimited text and picture messaging, unlimited text to Mexico, unlimited Mobile Web, unlimited directory assistance, nationwide roaming minutes and more — all without requiring signed contracts or credit checks.

In addition to unlimited mobile phone services, Cricket is also offering Cricket Broadband, allowing customers unlimited internet access anywhere in Cricket’s coverage areas on their desktop or laptop computers. The Cricket monthly broadband service plan is just $35 per month for customers who also have Cricket’s low-cost unlimited voice plans, and $40 per month as a stand-alone service.

Motorola today announced the arrival of MOTO VE66 with enhanced CrystalTalk audio technology, a 5-megapixel camera and MP3 player-like navigation for a 1-2-3 punch of great call quality, sharp pictures and an enjoyable music experience. The sleek, slider device also boasts the first widgets integration on a Motorola mobile device, which means you receive easier, more seamless access to what matters most – whether you crave sports scores, stock tickers or RSS feeds from your favorite blogs. Some of the key features are the following :

• 5MP camera with 1 key auto focus with auto LED flash and image stabilizer
• Automatic color saturation delivers whiter whites, crisper blacks and colors true to life.
• MP3 player with USB 2.0 enables high-speed access to data and downloads
• Wi-Fi
• Integrated FM radio with RDS2
• Pre-loaded and downloadable1 widgets on MOTO VE66, the first widget integration on a Motorola phone.

MOTO VE66 is expected to be available Q4 2008. For more information on technical specs,  visit www.motorola.com/motoinfo.

The Verizon-Alltel merger, which was recently approved by the FCC, will leave an even greater gap between the large and small US mobile operators; there will be no networks of between 7m and 30m customers. There are currently seven networks with fewer than 7m but more than 0.25m customers, although if AT&T’s plan to buy Centennial is successful, there will only be six remaining. At the end of Q3 08, these seven had 17.33m customers in total. Four out of the seven networks suffered net declines in the quarter. 

• US Cellular, the largest, lost 18k customers to finish the quarter on 6.18m – its first such loss in five years.
• Centennial saw its fourth successive quarterly loss, shedding 1k to end on 1.09m.
• Qwest’s 45k saw its third in a row but it was by far the largest of the three taking Qwest’s total customer base down to 0.77m, its lowest level since Q3 05.
• Finally, Cincinnati Bell suffered an 8k loss, its largest for three years, with an end-quarter customer base of 0.57m.

Only two of these four – Qwest and Centennial – also saw annual declines, with drops of 6.5% and 2.0% respectively. Similarly, only two companies saw double-digit annual growth. Leap and MetroPCS remain the fastest- growing operators in the US market with growth rates of 27.6% and 32.3% respectively. These figures were down on the previous year, but with 3.46m and 4.85m customers respectively, both operators already deserve to be considered as significant players. Ntelos was the next fastest growing, a 7.7% annual uplift taking its customer base to 0.43m. However, it too saw a decline in growth (3.2pp), as did Cincinnati Bell (down 8.4pp to 1.7%) and US Cellular (down 3.8pp to 1.9%). In fact none of the seven managed an increase in their customer base growth rate, although Centennial narrowed its decline from 23.0%.

This is a new free application for iPhone which should appeal to all the outoign folks. Last Call is to be taken with a touch of humor anyway. This application allows you to calculate your level of alcohol in the blood depending on how much you drank, what you have been drinking alcohol and your weight. And if you exceed the legal limit, a button appears that allows you to find a taxi near you or find a lawyer in a directory if you are arrested by law enforcement. Funny but it will be reallu useful if you will need it.

Here is the iTunes link to download the application.

Another good option has just become available for the ATT windows mobile lovers. AT&T recently began selling the LG CT810 Incite, a Windows Mobile 6.1 smartphone. The quad-band GSM/EDGE LG Incite has the following key features:

• quad-band GSM/EDGE radios
• tri-band 850/1900/2100 Mhz HSDPA
• GPS
• Wi-Fi
• FM radio
• Bluetooth 2.0+EDR
• A 3-inch WQVGA touch screen
• A 3 megapixel camera with video capture and Video Share.
• Accelerometer for switching between portrait and landscape mode
• Supports microSD cards up to 32GB.

It costs $199.99 after a $50 rebates with new agreement.

T-Mobile today officially launched the Samsung Gravity (SGH-t459), announced earlier this month. The Samsung Gravity is a sleek horizontal slider phone featuring a full QWERTY keyboard that makes staying up to speed with friends and family quick and easy. Key features of the Samsung Gravity include:

• Pull out QWERTY keyboard
• Aqua with white or Lime with Gray finish
• Web-enabled
• Multiple messaging options (text messaging, picture messaging, video messaging)
• Built-in email clients including AOL, AIM and Yahoo! as well as easy access to popular POP3 email such as Gmail
• AOL®, ICQ, Windows Live®, and Yahoo!® Instant Messenger
• Bluetooth® wireless technology
• microSD™ (up to 4 GB) expansion memory
• Advanced speech recognition
• Music and video player
• Speakerphone
• Personal organizer (calendar, calculator, currency converter, notepad, to-do list)
• Dimensions: 4.53” x 2.07” x 0.70”; 4.3 ounces
• Display: 176 x 220 Pixels, 262K TFT
• Internal memory: 60MB
• Standard Lithium Ion Battery: up to 6 hours usage time; or up to 300 hours standby time

The Samsung Gravity will be available at select T-Mobile retail stores and online at www.t-mobile.com for $49.99 after $50 mail-in rebate.